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Oil on canvas; 144.5 x 113 cm.
Massimo Campigli, born Max Ihlenfeld, was an Italian painter and journalist. He was born in Berlin, but spent most of his childhood in Florence. His family moved to Milan in 1909, and here he worked on the Letteratura magazine, frequenting avant-garde circles and making the acquaintance of Boccioni and Carrà. During World War I Campigli was captured and deported to Hungary where he remained a prisoner of war from 1916–18. At the end of the war he moved to Paris where he worked as foreign correspondent for the Milanese daily newspaper. Although he had already produced some drawings, it was only after he arrived in Paris that he started to paint. At the Café du Dôme he consorted with artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Gino Severini and Filippo De Pisis. Extended visits to the Louvre deepened Campigli's interest in ancient Egyptian art.
His first figurative works applied geometrical designs to the human figure, reflecting the influence of Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger as well as the Purism of "L’Esprit Nouveau". In 1923, he organized his first personal exhibition at the Bragaglia Gallery in Rome. During the next five years his figures developed a monumental quality, often with stylized poses and the limbs interwoven into a sculptural solidity. The importance given to order and tradition, the atmosphere of serenity and eternity were in line with the post-war reconstruction and the program of the “Twentieth Century” artists with whom Campigli frequently exhibited both in Milan from 1926–29 and abroad from 1927–31. In 1926 he joined the "Paris Italians" together with Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Renato Paresce, Savinio, Severini and Mario Tozzi. In 1928, year of his debut at the Venice Biennial, he was very much taken by the Etruscan collection when visiting the National Etruscan Museum in Rome. He then broke away from the compact severity of his previous works in favor of a plane with subdued tones and schematic forms rich in archaisms.
During a journey in Romania he started a new cycle of works portraying women employed in domestic tasks and agricultural labor. These figures were arranged in asymmetrical and hieratic compositions, hovering on a rough textured plane, inspired by ancient fresco. These works were enthusiastically received by the critics at the exhibition held in the Jeanne Bucher gallery, Paris, in 1929 and at the Milione Gallery, Milan, in 1931. During the ‘thirties he held a series of solo exhibitions in New York, Paris and Milan which brought him international acclaim. In 1933 Campigli returned to Milan where he worked on projects of vast dimensions. In the same year he signed Mario Sironi’s Mural Art Manifesto and painted a fresco of mothers, country-women, working women, for the V Milan Triennial which unfortunately was later destroyed. In the following ten years other works were commissioned: I costruttori ("The builders") for the Geneva League of Nations in 1937; Non uccidere ("Do not kill") for the Milan Courts of Justice in 1938, an enormous 300 square metre fresco for the entrance hall, designed by Gio Ponti, of the Liviano, Padua which he painted during 1939–40. He spent the war years in Milan and in Venice, then after the war they divided his time between Rome, Paris and Saint-Tropez. In a personal exhibition at the Venice Biennial in 1948 he displayed his new compositions: female figures inserted in complicated architectonic structures. During the 60s his figures were reduced to colored markings in a group of almost abstract canvasses. In 1967 a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to Campigli at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.
A vintage group photograph taken in Máriaremete, Hungary, on August 20, 1929. The image features Fritz János and his circle of friends posing outdoors, commemorating a special gathering. The group includes men, women, and children dressed in 1920s fashion, showcasing a snapshot of Hungarian culture and social life in the early 20th century.
Met this bunch on a Saturday night in Downtown Calgary. They were huddling together at the entrance of a dark alley, close to my office, when I walked past and snapped their silhouettes and shadows. They noticed and asked for a group portrait. The wall looked like it can make for an interesting background. I didn't pose them though.
Check out my main stream: flickr.com/eyeopenerpratyay
Oil on canvas; 70 x 71 in.
Yu Hong (b. 1966, Beijing) studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, during the 1980s. It is here that she continues to teach her painterly skills, initially grounded in the techniques of Social Realist painting (which was common in art academies in China at that time), but has since developed into her own recognized visual language anchored in the depiction of the human figure.
Yu Hong centers her practice on her experience as a woman, taking inspiration from both her own life and the lives of others around her. The world that she creates through her art encapsulates a sense of time and memory that is intermingled in the delicate, often domestic scenes that she portrays, resulting in large-scale works that are personal and emo tionally reflective. Working on canvas, silk or resin, with oil, pastel or fabric paint, Yu Hong frequently uses photography as a starting point for her work, at times incorporating this medium into the final piece. Interested in how our recollection of the past is enhanced or diminished through the camera lens, Yu Hong places the photographed subject in direct relationship with its own painterly image and thus examines the power of subjectivity in memory.
Influenced by the social, cultural and political changes taking place around her in China, Yu Hong seeks to portray a realistic representation of the everyday experiences which challenge women in China today, exploring how they endure the fragile relationship between tradition, career, family life and social expectations.
Yu Hong’s work has been shown extensively in China and abroad, including ‘Golden Sky’, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, ‘In and Out of Time – Yu Hong’, Guangdong Museum of Art; ‘Half Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection’, SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA, 2008; 5th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, China, 2004; Transience — Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century’, The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, USA, 1999; 47th Venice Biennale, 1997 and the 45th Venice Biennale, 1993 in Venice, Italy, with participation in major museum including National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece and Tomayo Art Museum, Mexico City, Mexico.
www.longmarchspace.com/artist/list_11_brief.html?locale=e...
Oil on canvas; 220.3 x 200 cm.
Yue Minjun (Chinese: 岳敏君) is a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing, China. He is best known for oil paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in laughter. He has also reproduced this signature image in sculpture, watercolour and prints. While Yue is often classified as part of the Chinese "Cynical Realist" movement in art developed in China since 1989, Yue himself rejects this label, while at the same time "doesn't concern himself about what people call him."[1]
Yue Minjun in the town of Daqing in Heilongjiang, China. Yue's family had been working on oil fields. When he was ten, his family moved to Beijing. He eventually moved to Hebei to find education and work, there he studied oil painting, he graduated from the Hebei Normal University in 1983. In the 1980s, he started painting portraits of his co-workers and the sea while he was engaged in deep-sea oil drilling. In 1989, he was inspired by a painting by Geng Jianyi at an art show in Beijing, which depicted Geng's own laughing face.[2] In 1990, he moved to Beijing, which was also home to other Chinese artists. During this period, his style of art developed out of portraits of his bohemian friends. Yue had been living a "nomadic" existence for much of his life, because his family often moved in order to find work on various oilfields.[3]
Over the years, Yue Minjun's style has rapidly developed. Yue often challenges social and cultural conventions by depicting objects and even political issues in a radical and abstract manner. He has also shifted his focus from the technical aspects to the "whole concept of creation". His self-portraits have been described by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”[5] Art critics have often associated Yue with the Cynical Realism art movement in contemporary Chinese art.
Yue is currently residing with fifty other Chinese artists in the Songzhuang Village. His piece Execution became the most expensive work ever by a Chinese contemporary artist, when sold in 2007 for £2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million) at London's Sotheby's.[7] The record sale took place week after his painting Massacre of Chios sold at the Hong Kong Sotheby's for nearly $4.1 million.[9] 'Massacre of Chios' shares its name with a painting of the same name, by Eugène Delacroix. As of 2007 thirteen of his paintings had sold for over a million dollars. One of his most popurar series was his "Hat" collection. This series, pictures Yue's grinning head wearing a variety of hats. The artist tells us that the series is about a "sense of the absurdity of the ideas that govern the sociopolitical protocol surrounding hats." The series nicely illustrates the way that Yue's character is universally adaptable, a sort of logo that can be attached to any setting to add value.
In 1999 Yue began fabricating bronze sculptural versions of his signature self-portrait paintings, playing off China's famous Qin Dynasty army of terracotta warriors. While the ancient sculptures are known for the subtle individuality of each of the warriors, his cackling modern-day version are relentlessly identical, cast from the same mold. During the "Year of China" in France in 2003/2004, he participated to the exhibition "China, the body everywhere?" including 39 Chinese contemporary artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille.[10]
Carte de visite. Plain back.
Studio of Schmúl, Altona, Königstr. 170.
Bought from an eBay seller in Winsen, Germany.
Explored on 16 December, 2016 (#291)
Oil on canvas; 59 x 66 in.
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a turn-of-the-century Norwegian artist, best known for his extremely personal brand of Symbolism, which helped lay the foundations for and proved a lasting influence on the later Expressionist school of art.
Edvard Munch was born on December 12, 1863, in the small town of Loten, Norway, as the second of five children. His father was Christian Munch, a military doctor, and his mother Laura Cathrine Munch, née Bjolstad. Edvard had three sisters, Sophie, Laura and Inger, and one brother, Andreas. Although ostensibly middle class, the family had but modest means and often struggled financially.
In 1864, soon after Edvard's birth, the family moved to Kristiania, the capital of Norway (the city would be renamed to "Christiania" in 1878 and again to "Oslo," its present name, in 1924). In 1868, Edvard's mother died of consumption (tuberculosis) and her sister, Karen Bjolstad, took care for the children and the household upon herself. In 1877, Edvard's elder sister Sophie also succumbed to tuberculosis. These two deaths greatly affected the future painter and echoes of the pain and despair he felt at the time would appear frequently in his work.
Although Munch was interested in painting since he was a boy, his family was not in love with the idea and urged him to acquire a more prestigious and profitable profession. In 1879, at the age of 16, he entered the Oslo Technical College with the idea of becoming an engineer. He pursued this field of study for little more than a year before deciding that his true calling was art and dropping out of the college. Soon thereafter, he enrolled for evening classes at the Royal Drawing School in Oslo. By 1881, he was studying there full-time.
Edvard Munch was a quick and able student. At the Royal Drawing School, he was considered one of the most gifted young artists of his day. In addition to his normal classes, Munch also began taking private lessons with Christian Krohg, an established artist and good friend. He also attended the open-air summer school of Frits Thaulow at Modum.
In 1883, Munch exhibited at the Oslo Autumn Exhibition for the first time. Over the next few years, he would become a regular participant.
Munch was exposed to a wide range of artistic influence during his formative period, which lasted from about 1880 to 1889. The painter often visited Kristiania's (Oslo's) rather modest National Gallery, and had an avid interest in contemporary art magazines. Like most of Northern, Eastern and Central Europe, Norway was considered culturally to be a provincial backwater and, like many of his colleagues and contemporaries, Munch traveled extensively to learn from both the rich painting traditions and the latest artistic developments of Europe's enlightened West and South.
In 1885, the painter attended the World Exhibition at Antwerp and paid a brief visit to Paris, then considered the Mecca of contemporary art. Munch was certainly familiar with the work of the Impressionists, whose large exhibition in Paris he visited that year and again in 1888, when there was another such exhibition in Copenhagen. Certainly, a variety of influences can be seen in Munch's work of the time, such as Maridalen by Oslo (1881), Self-Portrait (1881), Aunt Karen in the Rocking Chair (1883) and At the Coffee Table (1883). Conservative tastes reigned in Oslo at the time, and much of the painter’s work was poorly received by critics.
At home in Norway, the artist was part of a group of radical young intellectuals, which included both painters and writers and espoused a variety of political views, from anarchism to socialism to Marxism. Their ideas certainly influenced Munch's own. However, the painter's artistic focus would always remain on himself and his own subjective experiences, almost notoriously so. Thus, he often re-visited the tragic episode of his beloved sister's sickness and death in such works as The Sick Child (1885-86) and Spring (1889).
This latter painting delighted the critics and paved the way, in 1889, for Munch's first solo exhibition at Kristiania. That same year, he received a scholarship from the Norwegian government to study abroad. The artist traveled to Paris, where he enrolled at the art school of Leon Bonnat. He also attended the major exhibitions, where he became familiar with the works of the Post-Impressionists. His own canvases of the time show considerable Impressionist influence: witness Rue Lafayette (1890) or Moonlight over Oslo Fjord (1891), painted during a brief return to Norway. On the other hand, Night in St. Cloud, a dramatic and highly emotional work, has all the characteristic traits of Naturalism.
In 1892, Munch visited Berlin, where he had been invited to exhibit by the Berlin Artists' Association. The painter's work was received very poorly, and the exhibition was closed down after only a few days, as the critics howled in outrage. Undeterred, the painter toured through Cologne and Dusseldorf, before returning once again to Berlin. As so often happens, the initial scandal attracted a great deal of attention to the artist, and he quickly found supporters and patrons. Munch stayed in Berlin for over a year. Many of his paintings found customers and he was at last able to make a comfortable living.
In the following years, he traveled throughout Europe, exhibiting in Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm. In 1896, he exhibited at the Parisian Salon des Independents for the first time.
In 1888, Munch had discovered Asgardstrand, a seaside resort located about 50 miles away from Oslo, and rented a cottage there the following year. He would spend many summers there. In 1897, he finally purchased the house and established it as his home base, though he continued to travel extensively.
Munch's work of the period is concerned with human life, love and death. The paintings are more and more concerned with melancholy and the darker emotions. Some of the most notable products of this time include: Moonlight (1893), Puberty (1894), The Day After (1894-95), The Kiss (1897) and Man and Woman (1898). Contrast the picture Evening on Karl Johan Street (1892) with his earlier, brighter Spring Day on Karl Johan (1890). The famous Scream (1893) -- Munch produced several versions -- also belongs to this period. The painter gathered these works into an ensemble he titled The Frieze of Life, which he exhibited in a series of European cities. Like so much of Munch's previous work, this series of works had mixed reception among the critics and the public.
In 1903, the artist was commissioned by physician Dr. Max Linde to paint a number of decorative pieces for the children's room in the doctor's house. Munch produced eleven large canvases, depicting landscapes. Although Dr. Linde paid the artist in full, he was not completely satisfied with the results. The paintings, known as the Linde Frieze, stayed up for only eleven months before being taken down, stored and finally returned to the painter, from where they would find their way, separately, to a variety of museums and collections. Although the subjects of the paintings were quite tame, showing the beautiful Asgardstrand landscape, the doctor felt they were "unsuitable for children," perhaps because of the melancholy, brooding air that Munch seemed to unconsciously imbue his work with.
In 1906, Munch was commissioned by Max Reinhardt, the famous German theater director, to paint a decorative frieze for the Deutsches Theater. The painter had previously designed the stage set for Reinhardt's production of Ghosts, by Henryk Ibsen. The frieze was intended to decorate one of the rooms at the theater. For it, Munch chose to use the same theme as he had for the Linde frieze, but, unconstrained now, he peopled the landscape of Asgardstrand with vacationers and lovers. Works from the Reinhardt Frieze include: Asgardstrand, Two Girls, Couple on the Shore and, of particular note, The Lonely Ones. In total, the artist painted 12 canvases for this project.
While not rejected outright, the work was again received poorly although it is, arguably, some of Munch's best. After only a few years, the room was re-decorated and the paintings taken down. The artist himself complained about the project, claiming that it had been a large amount of work for meager pay.
In fact, Munch was in dire financial straits at this time, which were not helped by his nerves, frail health and heavy drinking. In 1908, he suffered a breakdown, as a consequence of which he retired to his cottage at Asgardstrand, there to live in relative isolation and solitude for the next several years.
In 1909, Munch entered a competition to design murals for the Festival Hall at the Oslo University. His designs were chosen out of a number of competitors, not without controversy, after the University of Jena, Germany, offered to purchase the painter's projects for themselves. The University of Oslo would not allow that and, in 1911, Munch was reluctantly given the job. The canvases, nine of them, 15 feet high each, with the largest spanning 38 feet in width, were finally unveiled in 1916 and easily rank among some of the artist's best work. The most notable painting in this group is probably The Sun, together with Alma Mater and History.
Around this time, Munch purchased the estate of Ekely in a quiet suburb of Oslo, which he would make his permanent home in the coming years.
After 1920, Munch grew increasingly withdrawn from public life, limiting social contacts and carefully guarding his privacy. He lived alone, without a servant or housekeeper, with only several dogs for company, and devoted his days to painting. It was during this period, ironically, that he at last began to gain the recognition that had been denied him previously by both critics and public.
As early as 1912, Munch's work had been exhibited alongside the works of such acclaimed Post-Impressionist painters as Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. The artist inspired great interest in Germany, which saw him as a vital link between the art world of Paris and the art world of Northern Europe.
Between 1920 and 1928, large exhibitions of his work were held in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Dresden, Mannheim and Munich, as well as Copenhagen and Zurich. Works of this period include: Model by the Wicker Chair (1919-21), The Wave (1921), Model on the Couch (1924-28), The Wedding of the Bohemian (1925) and Red House and Spruces (1927).
In 1930, a blood vessel in the painter's eye burst, seriously impairing his vision. As a result, Munch was forced to paint much less than before. In 1933, major exhibitions were held in honor of the painter's 70th birthday.
In 1936, the painter's eye problems grew worse, and he was forced to abandon work on decorative friezes and murals. That year, Munch had his first exhibition in England, which had thus far not shared the enthusiasm with which the painter was greeted in Central and Northern Europe. Ironically, the attitude towards the painter in Germany, where the painter had first gained widespread recognition had changed for the worse. With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, artistic innovations began to be regarded negatively. In 1937, eighty-two of Munch's paintings were declared "degenerate" and removed from museums. Many of these works found their way to the private collections of prominent Nazis, indicating that their personal views on Munch's art were rather different from the official party line.
In 1940, Germany occupied Norway. The artist refused to be associated in any way with the Nazis and the Quisling puppet-government they set up in Norway, isolating himself in his country home. His dramatic self-portrait By the Window (1940) dates to this period. In the painting, a balding and aging Munch stares defiantly upwards at something beyond the canvas. In the window behind him, a tangled winter landscape contrasts sharply with the warm, ruddy colors of the interior and the painter's face.
Following the USA's entry into the Second World War in 1942, the painter's anti-Nazi stance gained him recognition there as well. That year saw his first -- and only -- exhibition in the Americas, less than one and a half years before the artist's death.
Edvard Munch died on January 23, 1944, at his estate in Ekely. He bequeathed all of his property, which included over 1,000 paintings and close to 20,000 sketches, woodcuts and lithographs, to the city of Oslo. The Munch Museum was subsequently opened there to mark the painter's centenary, in 1963.
Biography by Yuri Mataev.
Real photo postcard. Postally unused.
Bought from an eBay seller in Syston, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Who can help me name the cast of characters? ...
If you enlarge the photo, it's interesting to look at the variety of dresses and hair decorations. It would be nice to think that each of these little girls had a long and happy life, but that probably wasn't the case for all of them. I wish we could know. RPPC from Germany.
Real photo postcard. Postally unused.
Found in a book at work (Stage Management by Peter Bax, Lovat Dickson, London, 1936).
Real photo postcard. Postally unused.
Published by Atelier H. Werle, Goslar.
Bought from an online postcard store in Germany.
Be sure to look at the large size to appreciate the detail!
Hans Holbein the Elder was a German painter. He and his brother Sigismund Holbein painted religious works in the late Gothic style. Hans the Elder was a pioneer and leader in the transformation of German art from the Gothic to the Renaissance style.
He was also a woodcut artist and an illustrator of books, and was a church window designer. His sons Hans Holbein the Younger and Ambrosius Holbein had their first painting lessons from him.
PsP gallery (buy PsP pictures on SmugMug)
PsP (Wordpress)
500px
www.instagram.com/psp.gallery/?hl=en
Shutterstock
Some of the women are wearing college style blazers and ties. Unused postcard backed print found in Blackpool.
The embossed photographer's name is possibly 'Maurice Brookes' and the date '1930-31 is written on the back.
Slim Aarons, born George Allen Aarons (October 29, 1916, Manhattan - May 29, 2006, Montrose, New York), was an American photographer noted for photographing socialites, jet-setters and celebrities.
At 18 years old, Aarons enlisted in the U.S. Army, working as a photographer at West Point and later serving as a combat photographer in World War II and earning a Purple Heart. Aarons said that combat had taught him that the only beach worth landing on was "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun."
After the war, Aarons moved to California and began photographing celebrities. In California, he shot his most praised photo, Kings of Hollywood, a 1957 New's Year's Eve photograph depicting Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and James Stewart relaxing at a bar in full formal wear. Aaron's work appeared in Life, Town & Country and Holiday magazines.
Aarons never used a stylist, or a makeup artist.
Aarons made his career out of what he called "photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places." "I knew everyone," he said in an interview with The (London) Independent in 2002. "They would invite me to one of their parties because they knew I wouldn't hurt them. I was one of them." Alfred Hitchcock's film, Rear Window, whose main character is a photographer played by Jimmy Stewart, is set in an apartment reputed to be based on Aarons's apartment. He died in 2006, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Corrosion on the glass negative has given a halo to one of the clergyman.
Uncle Very Rev TR Canon Griffith 1889-1963 is left front row
Local identifier: SFF 89203_0150_l2_003
Photographer: Unknown.
Caption: "Here we come to see you from Tongaland last year with the Gospel Wagon and the natives. If God will I will go now this year also with the gospel. Malla. If you have one before give that to Su"
The reverse side of this image can be seen here: www.flickr.com/gp/fylkesarkiv/f8A197
Diego Velázquez (artist)
I INTRODUCTION
Diego Velázquez (artist) (1599-1660), Spanish baroque artist (see Baroque Art and Architecture), who, with Francisco de Goya and El Greco, forms the great triumvirate of Spanish painting.
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in Seville, the oldest of six children. Both his parents were from the lesser nobility. Between 1611 and 1617 Velázquez worked as an apprentice to Francisco Pacheco, a Sevillian mannerist painter (see Mannerism) who was also the author of an important treatise, El arte de la pintura (The Art of Painting, 1649), and who became Velázquez's father-in-law. During his student years Velázquez absorbed the most popular contemporary styles of painting, derived, in part, from both Flemish and Italian realism.
II YOUTHFUL WORKS
Many of the earliest paintings by Velázquez show a strong naturalist bias, as does The Meal (1617?, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg), which may have been his first work as an independent master after passing the examination for the Guild of Saint Luke. This painting belongs to the first of three categories—the bodegón (kitchen piece), along with portraits and religious scenes—into which his youthful works, executed between about 1617 and 1623, may be placed. In his kitchen pieces, a few figures are combined with studied still-life objects (see Still Life), as in Water Seller of Seville (1619?-1620?, Wellington Museum, London). In these works, Velázquez's direct representation of nature and masterly effects of light and shadow make inevitable a comparison with the work of Italian painter Caravaggio. Velázquez's religious paintings, images of simple piety, portray models drawn from the streets of Seville, as Pacheco states in his biography of the artist. In Adoration of the Magi (1619, Prado, Madrid), for example, Velázquez painted his own family in the guise of biblical figures, including a self-portrait as well.
Velázquez was well acquainted with members of the intellectual circles of Seville. Pacheco was the director of an informal humanist academy, at the meetings of which the young artist was introduced to such luminaries as poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, whose portrait he executed in 1622 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Such contact was important for Velázquez's later work on mythological and classical subjects.
III APPOINTMENT AS COURT PAINTER
In 1622 Velázquez made his first trip to Madrid, ostensibly, according to Pacheco's biography, to see the royal painting collections, but more likely in an unsuccessful search for a position as court painter. In 1623, however, he returned to the capital and, after executing a portrait (1623, Prado) of the king, was named official painter to Philip IV. The portrait was the first among many such sober, direct renditions of the king, the royal family, and members of the court. Indeed, throughout the later 1620s, most of Velázquez's efforts were dedicated to portraiture. Mythological subjects would at times occupy his attention, as in Bacchus, also called The Drinkers (1628-1629, Prado). This scene of revelry in an open field, picturing the god of wine drinking with a group of tough-looking men, testifies to the artist's continued interest in realism.
IV TRIP TO ITALY
In 1628 Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens came to the court at Madrid on a diplomatic mission, and Velázquez was one of the few painters with whom he associated. Although Rubens did not have a direct impact on the style of the younger painter, their conversations almost certainly inspired Velázquez to visit the art collections in Italy that were so much admired by his fellow artist. In August 1629 Velázquez departed from Barcelona for Genoa and spent most of the next two years traveling in Italy. From Genoa he proceeded to Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome, returning to Spain from Naples in January 1631. In the course of his journey he closely studied both the art of the Renaissance and contemporary painting. Several of the works he executed during his travels attest to his assimilation of these styles. A notable example is Joseph and His Brothers (1630, El Escorial, near Madrid), which combines a Michelangelesque sculptural quality (see Michelangelo) with the chiaroscuro (light-and-shadow techniques) of such Italian masters as Guercino and Giovanni Lanfranco.
V RETURN TO SPAIN
On his return to Madrid, Velázquez resumed his duties as court portraitist with the rendition Prince Baltasar Carlos with a Dwarf (1631, Museum of Fine Arts), an image made poignant by the young prince's death before reaching adulthood. In 1634 Velázquez oversaw the decoration of the throne room in the new royal palace of Buen Retiro. His scheme was based on 12 scenes of battles in which Spanish troops had been victorious—painted by the most prestigious artists of the day, including Velázquez himself—and royal equestrian portraits. Velázquez's contribution to the cycle of battle pictures included the Surrender of Breda (1634, Prado), which portrays a magnanimous Spanish general receiving the leader of defeated Flemish troops after the siege of the town of Breda in 1624. The delicacy of its style and the astonishing range of emotions it captures make this the most celebrated historical composition of the Spanish baroque.
Velázquez's second major series of paintings from the 1630s is a group of hunting portraits of the royal family for the Torre de la Parada, a hunting lodge near Madrid. His famous depictions of court dwarfs, in which, unlike court-jester portraits by earlier artists, the subjects are treated with respect and sympathy, date from the late 1630s and early 1640s. Velázquez painted few religious pictures after entering the king's employ; Saints Anthony and Paul (late 1630s, Prado) and Immaculate Conception (1644?, Prado) are notable exceptions.
VI LATE WORKS
During the last 20 years of Velázquez's life, as his rise to prominence in court circles continued, his work as court official and architect assumed prime importance, limiting his artistic output. In 1649 he made a second trip to Italy, this time to buy works of art for the king's collection. During his year's stay in Rome from 1649 to 1650 he painted the magnificent portraits Juan de Pareja (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) and Pope Innocent X (Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, Rome). At this time he was also admitted into Rome's Academy of Saint Luke. The so-called Rokeby Venus (National Gallery, London) probably dates from this period as well.
The key works of the painter's last two decades are Las Hilanderas (The Spinners, about 1656, Prado), also known as The Fable of Arachne (see Arachne), an image of sophisticated mythological symbolism, and his masterwork, Las meninas (The Maids of Honor, 1656, Prado), a stunning group portrait of the royal family and Velázquez himself in the act of painting.
Contributed By:
Edward J. Sullivan
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Albumen print (7.2 x 9.9 cm) mounted on thick card with gold edge. Plain back.
Bought from an eBay seller in Old Kilpatrick, Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
Oil on canvas; 100 x 210 cm.
Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.
After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.
On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.
Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.
Leonor Morales
From Grove Art Online
© 2009 Oxford University Press
Group Portrait. Manning, North Dakota. RPPC.
1911 MANNING N. DAK. Postmark.
Sent to:
Miss Ethel Galbraith
Granton, Wis.
Clark Co.
Message:
Yours Rec'd Thanks.
We got back from Fargo the following week. You ought to be here, are having a picnic most every week.
[06673]
Oil on canvas; 186×183 cm.
1954 He was born in Chengdu city of Sichuan province.
1971 He entered Chengdu Art School (5.7 Literature Class).
1974 He worked in Chengdu Art Society.
1977 He entered the oil painting department of Sichuan Art Academy and stayed for teaching after graduation.
1982 He studied in oil painting research class of China Central Art Academy.
1984 He was employed as vice professor by Sichuan Art Academy to teach oil painting.
1986 He was invited by Center National Des Arts Plastiques to work in and teach art. He took part in teaching and communication in Montpellier Art Academy of Avignon in Paris.
1987 He was employed as the visiting professor by Germany University of Osnabrueck.
1987 He was employed as the vice professor of Sichuan Art Academy.
1987 He was employed as the commenting commissary in the 1st China Oil Painting Exhibition.
1991 He was employed as permanent vice professor by the oil painting department in China Central Art Academy.
1992 He became a free artist living in Germany.
1994 He was employed as the commenting commissary in the 2nd China Oil Painting Exhibition. Now he is a member of China Artist Association.
1999 He was employed as specially-invited professor by Sichuan Art Academy to work as graduates’ tutor.
Engraving.
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".
Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic", for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg.
Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th century scholar William Rossetti characterized Blake as a "glorious luminary," and as "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."
The date 'April 1896' is handwritten on the verso.
The photo was made at the Kopke Studio in Brooklyn, New York.
Card - 3.75 X 3.75 inches ; photo - 2.75 X 2.75 inches
Oil on canvas; 23 x 51 1/2 in.
Little has been recorded of the life of John William Godward. Inspired by the painter Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, Godward imitated his Neoclassical style. Both were counted among the members of the "Marble School," known for its depictions of subjects drawn from ancient Greek and Roman life placed in elaborate settings, with especially careful and realistic rendering of details like marble and flowers. Godward regularly exhibited his paintings at the prestigious Royal Academy in London, where they were initially greatly admired by the public. By the time he was in his fifties, however, the Marble School's approach had fallen out of favor. Godward nonetheless continued to paint in this manner until his death at age sixty-one.
Real photo postcard. Postally unused.
Bought from an eBay seller in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Undated, but from 1902 to about 1906 the instruction “For inland postage only, this space may now be used for communication” was used on postcards in the United Kingdom.
German painter and graphic artist. He probably trained with Dürer in Nuremberg, but his brilliant color, expressive use of distortion, and taste for the gruesome bring him closer in spirit to his other great German contemporary, Grünewald. His output was varied and extensive, including religious works, allegories and mythologies, portraits, designs for stained glass and tapestries, and a large body of graphic work. From 1512 to 1517 he lived in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, where he worked on his masterpiece, the high altar for Freiburg Cathedral. He is noted for representations of the Virgin Mary, in which he combined landscapes, figures, light, and color with an almost magical serenity. His portrayals of age, on the other hand, have a sinister character and a mannered virtuosity. His most characteristic paintings, however, are fairly small in scale - erotic allegories such as Death and the Maiden. Eroticism is often strongly present in his woodcuts, the best known of which is The Bewitched Stable Boy (1544).
Carte de visite.
Studio of G. F. Roger, Photo Artist, Broughty Ferry, Dundee, Scotland.
Bought from an eBay seller in Swindon, United Kingdom.
Note the cabinet card album open on the writing desk.
Bonnie Dundee (as a folk song) - ♫ youtu.be/zln-AAePtL0 ♫
or, if you prefer,
Bonnie Dundee (as classical music) ♫ youtu.be/aGucVIQR6TY ♫
Oil on canvas; 182 x 250 cm.
Yue Minjun (Chinese: 岳敏君) is a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing, China. He is best known for oil paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in laughter. He has also reproduced this signature image in sculpture, watercolour and prints. While Yue is often classified as part of the Chinese "Cynical Realist" movement in art developed in China since 1989, Yue himself rejects this label, while at the same time "doesn't concern himself about what people call him."[1]
Yue Minjun in the town of Daqing in Heilongjiang, China. Yue's family had been working on oil fields. When he was ten, his family moved to Beijing. He eventually moved to Hebei to find education and work, there he studied oil painting, he graduated from the Hebei Normal University in 1983. In the 1980s, he started painting portraits of his co-workers and the sea while he was engaged in deep-sea oil drilling. In 1989, he was inspired by a painting by Geng Jianyi at an art show in Beijing, which depicted Geng's own laughing face.[2] In 1990, he moved to Beijing, which was also home to other Chinese artists. During this period, his style of art developed out of portraits of his bohemian friends. Yue had been living a "nomadic" existence for much of his life, because his family often moved in order to find work on various oilfields.[3]
Over the years, Yue Minjun's style has rapidly developed. Yue often challenges social and cultural conventions by depicting objects and even political issues in a radical and abstract manner. He has also shifted his focus from the technical aspects to the "whole concept of creation". His self-portraits have been described by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”[5] Art critics have often associated Yue with the Cynical Realism art movement in contemporary Chinese art.
Yue is currently residing with fifty other Chinese artists in the Songzhuang Village. His piece Execution became the most expensive work ever by a Chinese contemporary artist, when sold in 2007 for £2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million) at London's Sotheby's.[7] The record sale took place week after his painting Massacre of Chios sold at the Hong Kong Sotheby's for nearly $4.1 million.[9] 'Massacre of Chios' shares its name with a painting of the same name, by Eugène Delacroix. As of 2007 thirteen of his paintings had sold for over a million dollars. One of his most popurar series was his "Hat" collection. This series, pictures Yue's grinning head wearing a variety of hats. The artist tells us that the series is about a "sense of the absurdity of the ideas that govern the sociopolitical protocol surrounding hats." The series nicely illustrates the way that Yue's character is universally adaptable, a sort of logo that can be attached to any setting to add value.
In 1999 Yue began fabricating bronze sculptural versions of his signature self-portrait paintings, playing off China's famous Qin Dynasty army of terracotta warriors. While the ancient sculptures are known for the subtle individuality of each of the warriors, his cackling modern-day version are relentlessly identical, cast from the same mold. During the "Year of China" in France in 2003/2004, he participated to the exhibition "China, the body everywhere?" including 39 Chinese contemporary artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille.[10]
Persistent URL: floridamemory.com/items/show/257705
Local call number: KOR1715
Title: Unidentified Koreshan women in Estero, Florida
Date: ca. 1900
Physical descrip: 1 photoprint - b&w - 3 x 3 in.
Series Title: Koreshan Unity Collection
Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida
500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL, 32399-0250 USA, Contact: 850.245.6700, Archives@dos.myflorida.com
Carte de visite.
Studio of J. A. Harrison, 93 Rockingham Street, Newington Causeway, London. Old photographs copied.
Bought from an eBay seller in Kettering, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom.
John Ashworth Harrison (1821-1900), London photographer and inventor of photographic devices. Co-inventor with J. R. Johnson of the "Pantascopic" camera, one of the first cameras capable of taking panoramic photographs on glass plates, patented in 1862, and perfected in 1865. - www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/
The "Pantascopic" camera is descibed in detail in the 1901 issue of the British Journal of Photography (in lieu of an obituary): notesonphotographs.org/index.php?title=British_Journal_of...
Oil on canvas; 280 x 400 cm.
Yue Minjun (Chinese: 岳敏君) is a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing, China. He is best known for oil paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in laughter. He has also reproduced this signature image in sculpture, watercolour and prints. While Yue is often classified as part of the Chinese "Cynical Realist" movement in art developed in China since 1989, Yue himself rejects this label, while at the same time "doesn't concern himself about what people call him."[1]
Yue Minjun in the town of Daqing in Heilongjiang, China. Yue's family had been working on oil fields. When he was ten, his family moved to Beijing. He eventually moved to Hebei to find education and work, there he studied oil painting, he graduated from the Hebei Normal University in 1983. In the 1980s, he started painting portraits of his co-workers and the sea while he was engaged in deep-sea oil drilling. In 1989, he was inspired by a painting by Geng Jianyi at an art show in Beijing, which depicted Geng's own laughing face.[2] In 1990, he moved to Beijing, which was also home to other Chinese artists. During this period, his style of art developed out of portraits of his bohemian friends. Yue had been living a "nomadic" existence for much of his life, because his family often moved in order to find work on various oilfields.[3]
Over the years, Yue Minjun's style has rapidly developed. Yue often challenges social and cultural conventions by depicting objects and even political issues in a radical and abstract manner. He has also shifted his focus from the technical aspects to the "whole concept of creation". His self-portraits have been described by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”[5] Art critics have often associated Yue with the Cynical Realism art movement in contemporary Chinese art.
Yue is currently residing with fifty other Chinese artists in the Songzhuang Village. His piece Execution became the most expensive work ever by a Chinese contemporary artist, when sold in 2007 for £2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million) at London's Sotheby's.[7] The record sale took place week after his painting Massacre of Chios sold at the Hong Kong Sotheby's for nearly $4.1 million.[9] 'Massacre of Chios' shares its name with a painting of the same name, by Eugène Delacroix. As of 2007 thirteen of his paintings had sold for over a million dollars. One of his most popurar series was his "Hat" collection. This series, pictures Yue's grinning head wearing a variety of hats. The artist tells us that the series is about a "sense of the absurdity of the ideas that govern the sociopolitical protocol surrounding hats." The series nicely illustrates the way that Yue's character is universally adaptable, a sort of logo that can be attached to any setting to add value.
In 1999 Yue began fabricating bronze sculptural versions of his signature self-portrait paintings, playing off China's famous Qin Dynasty army of terracotta warriors. While the ancient sculptures are known for the subtle individuality of each of the warriors, his cackling modern-day version are relentlessly identical, cast from the same mold. During the "Year of China" in France in 2003/2004, he participated to the exhibition "China, the body everywhere?" including 39 Chinese contemporary artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille.[10]